


No Rest

by katiemariie



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Dialogue Heavy, Dramedy, Established Relationship, M/M, Mommy Issues, Post-Canon, Religion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-04
Updated: 2018-02-04
Packaged: 2019-03-13 10:40:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13568868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katiemariie/pseuds/katiemariie
Summary: Sisko comes home. He doesn't have quite the hero's welcome he was expecting.





	No Rest

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Auroranym](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Auroranym/gifts).



“I suppose this makes my decision for me.” 

Garak’s tremulous voice breaks through the stillness of the wardroom. The first words he’s spoken in what feels like hours draw every eye in the room. Commander Worf, Dr. Bashir, Counselor Dax, and Jake look at him with not-quite sympathy. 

Garak continues, “With Benjamin gone, there’s nothing keeping me on the station. I can return to Cardassia and aid in recovery efforts without any lingering commitments.”

“He’s not gone,” Jake snaps even as he slides a mug of Tarkalean tea Garak’s way. “We just haven’t found him yet.”

“Oh, and if the most sophisticated scanning equipment in the sector can’t find him, that must mean he’s somewhere on Bajor picking flowers.”

Jake looks to Dax. “He always does this!”

“You’re tattling to her now?” Garak mutters.

“Every time something bad happens, he gets all sarcastic and starts…” Jake pulls out a term from one of their many family counselling sessions: “...catastrophizing.”

“This isn’t some delusion or symptom,” Garak says, voice rising. “We were warned. The Prophets told your father that our joining would bring sorrow. We didn’t listen, but we were warned. And now we are facing the consequences.”

Garak pauses for one of Jake’s predictable (and perhaps mildly endearing) optimistic comments, but finds only silence from the young man and a blank expression on his face. A frighteningly blank expression that goes on for far too long.

“Jake.” Garak shakes his forearm, panic bubbling to the surface. “Jake! _Jake!_ ” Garak looks up at Dr. Bashir. “Something’s wrong. He’s not responding.” Never one to underestimate the use of force in eliciting a response, Garak shakes Jake once more.

The light returns to Jake’s eyes. “Garak, stop, I’m fine.”

“Don’t do that,” Garak orders just above a whisper. “Don’t go away like that.”

Ever the sensitive soul, Jake lays his smooth palm on the scaly hand still gripping his arm. “I was with my dad.”

-

Within the spidersilk that separates the planes of linear time and the worlds of alinear existence, Ben circles Deep Space Nine, still debating when and where to breach the surface. He should know by now. Even with his many lessons, Ben had no shortage of opportunities in the Celestial Temple to consider the perfect time and place to reappear in his family’s lives.

At first, a birthday seemed the natural choice. Only his father’s or Jake’s birthday parties could bring together the broadchurch Ben considers family. 

However practical it may be to return to everyone all at once, Ben quickly realized a giant drawback in the long-term: whoever’s birthday he reappeared on would likely become a major Bajoran religious holiday for the next several thousand years.

Having a birthday that falls around and occasionally during Mardi Gras celebrations, Ben does not want Jake or his father to face a similar fate. Especially since the new Bajoran holiday with which they’d share a birthday would be a huge celebration of Ben himself.

Even without Garak here to keep him honest, Ben must admit he does not fancy the prospect of having to choose between his filial and pastoral responsibilities so acutely every year. It’s hard enough trying to top last year’s birthday cake without piling on a dozen or so religious ceremonies and blessings that week.

So, Ben nixes the birthday idea. Since he cannot imagine another time when his father, Jake, and Garak will all be together—let alone with his friends and siblings—Ben gives up on reuniting with everyone all at once. Of course, he could wait for the three most important men in his life to come together (perhaps during one of his father’s surprise visits to the station), but any further delay would sour his return. Waiting for the perfect moment to return sounds thoughtful until one realizes there are people (in fact, an entire people) missing him dearly.

An initial, one-on-one reunion, while exclusive, would be timely.

But who would be the first person to welcome him back to linear time?

Jake is a natural choice, being the person Ben loves most in the world. But Ben brought Jake to the Celestial Temple alone to explain his absence, and any appearance of favoritism among the three will only inspire decades of passive aggressive grumbling. Also, Ben is pretty sure if he keeps “appearing” to Jake like this, his son will become some kind of Bajoran saint.

Jake is out, leaving Garak and Ben’s father. Narrowed down to two, Ben’s choice is clear: Garak may resent being roped into the Bajoran religious canon like this, but he probably won’t die of shock if Ben pops up while he’s making shrimp creole.

And, even if it makes him feel like a bad son, Ben must admit he’s far more anxious to see his husband than his father.

Of course, suddenly appearing in front of Garak creates its own set of problems. Garak is on thin enough ice with the Bajoran people without adding “got startled and threw a paring knife into the resurrected Emissary’s throat” to his resume.

The question of how and when to reappear to Garak without either of them dying or critically injuring the other leaves Ben floating in the gauze between time and timelessness. The problem in living with someone is that you learn all of their day-to-day quirks. For Ben, this includes the time Garak dedicates to honing his reactions to surprise attacks from various directions. Appearing behind Garak or off to the side, Ben knows, will not protect either of them.

Unless Garak has worked through decades of paranoia and indoctrination while Ben was gone, suddenly popping into existence anywhere in the same room as Garak is asking for trouble.

Ben may have signed on for a lifetime of Garak’s trouble, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to ask for it outright.

After spending anywhere between infinity and an instant in a white fog, it takes Ben a moment to realize that he could simply knock on the door and ask Garak to let him in. This would remove the element of surprise (and danger), but also add the possibility of some passerby happening upon him in the corridor before Garak can let him in.

His recollection of doors and architecture still a little shaky, Ben circumvents this issue by reappearing in the guest bathroom. (A snap decision regretted by Ben and every vedek tasked with writing about his miraculous return: “And, lo, the Emissary came down from the Celestial Temple and into the lavatory.”)

Suddenly certain somehow that Garak is home, that he has not returned to Cardassia in Ben’s absence, that he is waiting and possibly rather annoyed about that, Ben knocks on the bathroom door.

After a moment, Garak calls from outside, “Who is in there?”

Ben prepares to deliver a very eloquent and forceful proclamation, but finding his vocal cords tight from disuse, simply croaks, “Benjamin.”

“Benjamin who?”

Ben rolls his eyes vaguely in the direction from which he’s just arrived. “Benjamin, your loving husband.”

A pause. “If this is some kind of joke, you should know that as the Emissary’s husband I can and will send any deceivers to the Fire Caves. I have that power.”

“No, you do not.”

“Are you certain?” Garak asks.

“Yes, and if you even try, you’ll find yourself in a very cozy holding cell. Again.”

In his silence, Garak seems to consider this. “I’m going to open the door, but I’ll need you to keep your eyes closed until I say you can open them.”

With a sigh, Ben steels himself for whatever hoops Garak is about to make him jump through. “Fine.”

“Are your eyes closed?”

Ben squeezes them shut. “Yes.”

“Good.”

The door slides open, revealing nothing to Ben but just about everything to Garak. 

“Benjamin,” Garak murmurs.

“It’s really me. I’ve come back.”

“I can see that.”

“Am I allowed to open my eyes?”

“Not quite. Just give me a moment to freshen up. I know it may have only been an instant for you, but for me this will be the first time we’ve seen each other in over a year. I don’t want my rumpled appearance to send you running back into the arms of the Prophets.” The unmistakable sound of a disruptor rifle being disassembled punctuates Garak’s patter. 

Eyes still closed, Ben asks, “You were going to shoot me?”

“Of course, not,” Garak says, his voice farther away now. “I couldn’t have a weapon even if I wanted to.” Metal scrapes in a part of the room Ben cannot place. “Station regulations forbid it.” 

“And you would never violate station regulations.”

Footsteps. “Never.” Arms wrap around Ben’s neck. “Not unless you asked.” Something soft, warm, and wet—Garak’s tongue?—licks up Ben’s cheek.

Ben shivers. “What are you doing?”

Garak pulls back. “Multi-factor identification.” He smacks his lips. “Changelings are woefully insufficient at mimicking a lifeform’s taste.”

Ben wraps his arms around Garak’s waist. “How did I do?”

Garak leans into Ben’s embrace. “Underneath the ozone and ash, you taste very distinctly like my husband.” 

Garak pulls him down into the kind of long, thorough, all-encompassing kiss Ben wishes he could have given as a goodbye in the Celestial Temple but will have to do as a hello in their living room. The kiss fades into a hug, Garak burying his face in Ben’s neck, inhaling deeply. 

His head resting atop Garak’s, Ben asks, “Can I open my eyes now?”

“If you must,” Garak murmurs into Ben’s neck.

Ben looks out at a space he always knew he’d return to—the captain’s quarters—and a place he feared he’d never see again—the home they share. It’s messier than he remembers. PADDs and clothing lie about everywhere, but underneath lies the chairs they picked out, the rug they argued over, the life they built together. Garak has lived here alone, but in the same way Chief O’Brien lived while Keiko was gone: hard, but with every expectation that his partner would return.

Ben smiles. “I like what you’ve done with the place.”

Garak scoffs. “Believe me: it would be in much worse shape if it weren’t for Jake.”

“Jake moved back in?”

“No, you wouldn’t be able to see the floor if Jake was living here.” Garak turns his head, resting it in the crook of Ben’s neck. “But he does have an access code, which he uses to let Nog in about once a month. That keeps things at an acceptable level of disarray.”

“You’re using my chief engineer as a maid?”

“You make it sound so exploitative. As if I were forcing him at gunpoint to rearrange the bookshelves and snipe at Jake for not tidying up after me. If I’m to be perfectly candid, I’d say Nog enjoys it.”

“Knowing Nog’s family, I’d say you’re right.” Ben holds Garak tighter. “He’ll have to find someone else to nag about cleaning now that I’m home.”

“You plan on cleaning up after me now?” Garak asks.

“No, I plan on nagging you.”

“I’m so pleased nothing has changed between us,” Garak deadpans.

“Me too,” Ben says, pulling away. Keeping his hands planted on Garak’s hips, he steps back to get his first real look at his husband in over a year.

In his more vulnerable moments, Ben feared he would return to his family just as he had in a reality no one else remembers: popping in and out of existence, watching his loved ones grow old, suffer without him, and die in his arms. The jet-black of Garak’s hair, the vibrancy of his scales, the clarity of his eyes banish that nightmare. Age has touched Garak no more than it should in a year’s time. He looks very much like the sleep-deprived, sedentary, middle-aged man Ben has always known.

The only real change is Garak’s clothes. Far from the fastidiously tailored, freshly pressed outfits Ben is used to, Garak’s shirt hangs loose around the neckline and shoulders, and the slight bagginess of his pants emphasizes the wrinkles. Ben gives Garak’s love handles a light, experimental squeeze, his fingers pressing into less soft flesh than he remembers.

The weight loss doesn’t surprise him. Without his cooking, Garak was left to his own devices, meaning forgotten meals and replicated food. And, honestly, who would be that keen to eat something from a replicator after living with a Sisko?

But Garak’s clothes not fitting right? That raises the alarm.

“Have you been keeping yourself busy?” Ben asks. It’s their shorthand for, “On a scale of working all night to lying on the floor for ten hours, what extreme are you swinging toward?”

Garak lets his hands fall from Ben’s neck, resting them flat on his clavicle. “Busier than you can imagine.” Garak clucks his tongue. “Who knew weaving and unweaving a death shroud could be so time-consuming? Of course, fending off the many suitors who’ve come to call in your absence is practically a full-time job in and of itself.”

Ben smiles. “I see you’ve kept up your lunches with Dr. Bashir.”

Garak pats Ben’s chest. “The good doctor was kind enough to offer a few hours of his company to an old friend abandoned by his people and then his husband.”

“I didn’t abandon you.” Ben lays his right hand over Garak’s, pressing it to his heart. “I would never abandon you.”

“My dear.” A chill settles over Garak’s tone. “What exactly did you do then?”

“I fulfilled a responsibility. To my people. Something you of all people should—”

Curling his fingers at the first knuckle, Garak digs his nails into Ben’s uniform. “You left me. You went somewhere I couldn’t follow, and never told me when or if you’d be coming back.”

“I told Jake. He must have explained to—”

“Yes. You told _Jake_.”

Ben scoffs, pulling Garak’s hand away. “After all this time, after everything we’ve been through, I can’t believe you’re still jealous of my relationship with my son.”

“Don’t mistake awareness for jealousy.” Garak withdraws his hand from Ben’s grasp. “I accepted a long time ago that your bond with Jake is the strongest, most enduring relationship in your life. And now I don’t resent being second—not to someone I care for, not to someone who’s earned every ounce of love and support you seem to think children deserve simply by being born. Jake is a good, filial son. He would wait his entire life for you to come home.”

Jake already had—in a version of reality Ben tries not to think about. He pointedly does not bring that up.

“And that loyalty,” Ben starts, “you don’t think it makes Jake worthy of visiting me in the Celestial—”

“This isn’t about worth,” Garak interrupts. “Jake is not a Cardassian son and you are not a Cardassian father. This is about need.”

“Jake needed to know I was still alive. I needed him to know his father was coming home.”

“He already knew, Benjamin,” Garak hisses. “If Jake didn’t see your body—even if there were a thousand witnesses—he would still believe you were alive and coming home to him.” Garak draws a deep, ragged breath. “Could you really say the same for me? A man who’s never been loyal until it’s too late?”

Ben closes his eyes not wanting to witness this truth. “No,” he answers. “I can never know for sure with you.”

“And yet you left what we have up to chance,” Garak says. “You wagered our marriage on the assumption that I would stay—even with Cardassia calling my name, offering a hero’s welcome—based on hearsay passed along by a child.”

Ben’s eyes pop open. “ _Our_ child,” he corrects.

“Yes, our child, the lyrical heart of Federation optimism. Why would I ever doubt him?”

If Ben were a different kind of holy man, he would tell Garak that doubt was part of the process, that faith couldn’t exist in its absence, that all of this was a test of Garak’s piety. But Ben is not that kind of Emissary and Garak certainly isn’t one of his followers.

They are what they are to each other: husbands. So, Ben reacts accordingly with righteous indignation suited for the home rather than the shrine.

“Has it ever occurred to you that _I_ would have liked some reassurance?” Ben asks, his voice rising. “That I wanted to see my husband? To hold him in my arms? To hear him promise he’d wait for me? To tell him I was coming home to him?”

“Then why didn’t you?” Garak asks, matching Ben’s volume.

“Because who would’ve believed you?”

A perfect vacuum seems to descend on the room, bringing with it the total silence only found in space. Garak takes a step back as if to make room for the words hanging between them. 

Ben wants to reach out, to offer some kind of ameliorative touch, but what he said—what he’s about to say—is too important to take back.

He continues more quietly. “I would have liked that moment to be just for you and me, but there were other people who needed to know I was coming back. My family, my friends, the Bajoran people.”

“And they wouldn’t have believed a Cardassian,” Garak says softly.

Ben shakes his head. “Not after what Dukat pulled with the pah-wraiths.”

“Not ever, Benjamin,” Garak corrects sharply. “We made sure of that.” He tuts. “We’ve lied to nearly every civilization in the quadrant, including our own. It’s a wonder I manage to believe myself sometimes.”

Ben marvels at Garak’s ability to turn on a dime from accusations to self-deprecation. Many things about Ben’s husband may be suspect, but his capacity for unsparing introspection is not one of them.

That makes taking this conversation where it needs to go both easier and harder. Ben knows Garak will follow along, but he can’t predict what will send Garak spiraling downward.

Ben starts slowly. “Given the kind of stress you’d been under, would you have believed yourself?” Ben holds up a hand, halting words that Garak has yet to form. “I know you would have believed me. You could have held me, touched me, felt my breath on your scales. But after? You’re not a religious man, Garak. With everyone doubting you, I wouldn’t fault you for believing—”

“It was all a dream?” Garak offers. “A hallucination? Another delusion of grandeur concocted by a poisoned brain?” Garak clucks his tongue. “Do you really think I’d crumble that quickly without you?”

“No, but there’d be no shortage of people trying to convince you you had. And even if they never did—” Ben stops himself, finding he has to start all over to face this unpleasant truth head on. “You’re not just the Emissary’s husband; you’re the spouse of a Starfleet officer. Even if I’m missing in action, your medical care still falls under Starfleet. I may wear their uniform, but even I’ll admit that Starfleet’s hunger for discovery can override its morality. If a patient is interesting enough, we’re willing to forget the values the Federation was founded upon: freedom, equality, cooperation.” Ben clenches his fist, trying to vanquish a remembered sensation: Benny Russell’s hand gripping a stubby pencil, scribbling on the asylum walls. “Putting people away is an old Human habit.”

Garak steps nearer, laying a hand on Ben’s shoulder: his first show of husbandly concern since Ben’s return.

“You were afraid,” Garak says evenly.

Ben nods wordlessly.

“For me?” Garak asks.

“Of myself. Of what I could do,” Ben says. “And, yes, for you.”

“But not for Jake?”

Ben shakes his head slowly, thoughtfully. “No. I… I made Jake. A part of him is a part of me. No matter how uncertain I am in my new abilities, I know I could never truly hurt Jake. It would be like hurting myself.”

“But hurting me—”

Ben cuts through the doubt trickling into Garak’s tone. “Would be like hurting my husband.” He cups Garak’s cheek. “And you know what I’d have to do then.”

The corners of Garak’s mouth upturn slightly. “I seem to recall a few vague threats.”

After so many years together, Ben has found that Garak accepts his arguments for self-sympathy if Ben follows them with, “And if anyone else treated you the way you treat you, I’d reassign them to the Fire Caves.”

And although Ben already faced that punishment, he apologizes. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I don’t regret what I did. But I’m sorry we had to be apart.” 

Garak squeezes Ben’s arm. “I suppose if I were a better husband, I would say I’m angry at the situation, not you. But I’m not a better husband.”

Ben strokes his thumb along Garak’s facial scales. “You’re the best husband I’ve had.”

Garak rolls his eyes. “And you’re the best I’ve had, but that doesn’t mean you won’t resent me for being angry.”

Ben pulls away. “I don’t resent your anger; you’re entitled to your feelings. I just wish those feelings didn’t stop you from appreciating that I have feelings.”

“I know you have feelings, Benjamin,” Garak says. “It’s just that in this case, I think my feelings are more important.”

Ben snickers. “I’m glad to see you’re still the same man I married.”

“I’m sorry.” Garak touches a hand to his chest in mock concern. “Not all of us spent the last year on a self-improvement retreat with our dead mothers.”

“Is that what you think I—” Ben stops himself, an accusatory finger frozen in the air, still pointed at Garak. After a timeless pause, he starts again. “I can’t keep arguing with you. I don’t _want_ to argue with you.”

“And you think I do?”

Ben sighs. “Why do you have to say it like that? Why do you have to turn everything back on me?”

“Why do you have to criticize everything I say?” Garak shoots back.

“Because I’m angry,” Ben snaps. “I’m angry that I had to leave you, that I had no real say in the matter, that we had to be apart from each other. And now that I’m home and we’re back together, the only person here for me to be angry at is you.” He takes a deep breath and sighs. “So, yes, at the core, I’m angry at the situation, not you.”

Garak tilts his head to the side, leaning up to study Ben’s face. “No,” he says calmly. “You’re angry at them.”

“Them?” Ben asks. “Who’s them?”

Garak cuts his eyes in the direction of the wormhole. “Them.”

“The Dominion?”

Garak sighs in exasperation. “I don’t know why you’re being so obtuse about all this. According to the histories Dr. Bashir has shared with me, your people have never been afraid to argue with God. Or the Prophets, as the case may be.”

Ben furrows his brow. “The Prophets are not God.”

“I know. There’s only one God and He lives over there.” Garak flaps his hand vaguely in the direction of Earth and, by extension, the Holy Land.

Ben pinches the bridge of his nose; in that sentence alone, Garak has made a number debatable theological points, none of which Ben has time to get into at the moment. Instead, he insists, “I’m not angry at the Prophets. They saved my life, kept me from an eternity of torment in the Fire Caves. If they can’t understand why taking me away from my family would hurt me, I can’t fault her for that.”

Garak, the very last person you want to make a Freudian slip around, raises his brow ridges. “Her?”

“Them,” Ben corrects.

“You said ‘her.’”

“Well, I meant ‘them.’”

A sickly smile spreads across Garak’s face. “Of course, dear.” He tsks, stepping towards Ben. “Poor little Benjamin…” He wraps his arms around Ben’s waist. “So afraid of being a bad son. Can’t even be mad at the mother who kidnapped him.”

Ben bites back the words, “You tortured people to be a loyal son of Tain,” because they don’t need any more cruelty tonight and, more importantly, that comparison would only concede the argument.

Instead, Ben places his hands on Garak’s shoulders and says calmly, almost flippantly, “She’s not my mother.”

“Of course, dear.” Garak kisses him on the cheek.

Somehow the affection doesn’t pacify him; he feels the need to clarify. “Rebecca Sisko was my mother. Sarah, the woman she possessed, was my mother. She was never my mother.”

Garak gives Ben a light squeeze. “Absolutely. My mistake.”

Despite having won the point, Ben continues to mount his argument. “She left us. She abandoned me before I could even remember her. She made a choice. For forty-two years, she made a choice. And she chose not to be in my life.”

Garak nestles in closer, his arms growing tighter around Ben.

“She is not my mother,” Ben repeats. “She has no right… She ignored me my entire life. She did nothing to raise me. And yet she thinks she can storm into my mind and tell me who to love, where to live, who I’m supposed to be? She thinks she can take me away from everyone I love just so she can teach me about our people? If she wanted that so bad, then where the hell was she for the past four decades? Where was she when Momma died? When Jennifer and Jadzia died? When you were locked up in a Dominion prison camp? Where was she then?” Ben blinks back tears, determined not to cry over her. “A parent can’t pick and choose the parts they want. They have to be there. I don’t care if they don’t understand time, cause and effect; they have to be there. And she wasn’t.”

Garak rubs Ben’s back and says calmly, “Benjamin, not all parents are like you and your father.”

“Maybe they should be,” Ben grumbles.

“Undoubtedly. But most aren’t. They’re still parents.” He pauses to press a kiss onto Ben’s jawline, to inhale the scent of him. “You don’t owe her anything she hasn’t earned. Whatever obligation or loyalty you feel toward Joseph, that comes from his dedication to you and to Jake. If you feel differently about her, the guilt lies with her, not you.”

Ben rests his temple against Garak’s head, letting a tear drop onto Garak’s hair. “I wish I didn’t need her. Everything would be so much less complicated.”

“If it’s any consolation, it sounds like she needs you just as much, if not more.” Garak pauses. “That gives you leverage.”

“Leverage?” Ben chuckles softly. “Are you suggesting that I blackmail her?”

“Don’t laugh.” Garak puts on his facetious, professorial tone perfected at lunches with Dr. Bashir. “I have more experience dealing with complicated parental relationships than most. You’d be surprised how far blackmail can go toward encouraging maternal behavior.”

“And you know from experience?” Ben asks, the pull of Garakian intrigue distracting him from his pain.

“Of course. I was living proof of my mother’s biggest secret. Once I figured that out, she’d read me as many bedtime stories as I wanted.” Garak pauses. “In hindsight, I probably should have asked for a boarpup.” He tickles Ben’s spine. “Imagine what you could ask for.”

Ben links his hands behind Garak’s back, letting his arms hang loose. “Right now, I can’t imagine asking her for anything. Right now, I just want to yell, to make her feel sorry. It’s horrible and immature, but I wish I could make her feel as terrible as she’s made me feel. I wish I could hurt her.”

“Lieutenant Dax told me it’s perfectly normal to feel that way about your mother. Or, rather, she told Nog who told Jake who told me.”

“Well,” Ben says, “it’s not normal for me. And it’s certainly not normal for the Emissary.” He sighs. “I don’t know how I’m going to face the Bajorans like this. I can’t imagine addressing the Vedek Assembly while harboring so much resentment toward the Prophets.”

“It’s a pity Kai Winn is dead,” Garak says. “She could have given you a few pointers.”

Ben barely registers the joke. “I’m supposed to announce my return, bring the Bajoran people blessings from the Celestial Temple. I don’t think I can listen to them praise the Prophets when I feel like damning one of them.”

Garak cups the back of Ben’s head. “So don’t.”

“What?”

“Stay home tonight.” He strokes Ben’s scalp. “You can make your grand re-entry into Bajoran religious life when you’re ready.”

Ben pulls back to look Garak in the eye. “They’re waiting for me.”

“Benjamin,” Garak says, “they waited millenia for you to show up the first time. I doubt a few more days will kill them now.”

“A few days?” Ben smirks. “Do you really think you can keep a secret this big for that long on this station?”

Garak glares. “Who do you think you married? Your crew can’t do a spacewalk in view of our portholes without me knowing a week in advance.”

“The parade of visitors is bound to draw suspicion.”

“Then we won’t have visitors. It’ll just be me, you, and our mother issues.”

“What about Jake?” Ben asks.

“As soon as I set up a secure channel, you can comm him.”

“He’s not here?”

Garak shakes his head. “He’s on Earth with your father. I would be too if I thought I could withstand that Portland weather without someone to keep me warm.”

“Portland?” For reasons he can’t quite place, a chill worthy of the Pacific Northwest runs through Ben.

“Your sister’s birthday,” Garak explains.

Ben winces. “I hope Judith doesn’t mind sharing her birthday with Bajoran Mardi Gras.”

“I’m sure she won’t.” Garak pats Ben’s cheek. “There are at most two Bajorans in the state of Oregon, and I doubt either of them know your sister.”

Ben looks around their home, at the rug and the chairs, Garak’s PADDs sprawled across his unused kitchen, and he feels the tiredness brought on by his journey: from Vic’s to the Fire Caves, from the Celestial Temple to back home, from his fraught reunion with Garak to the easy comfort he feels once again in his husband’s arms.

With weariness pressing down on his bones, speaking to anyone—even someone as loved and missed as Jake—seems an insurmountable task right now.

“It’s late. Here and in Portland,” Ben says. “I can comm Jake tomorrow. Tonight I’m yours.”

“Are you sure?”

Ben looks back at his husband. He may find no rest on Bajor, but he can have it here with him. “I’m sure.”

-

Satisfied that Benjamin has fallen into a deep sleep, Garak slips out of their bed and into the living room. Hacking into a secure channel is easier during the night shift; it doesn’t take long for Jake’s bleary-eyed face to fill the vidscreen.

“Garak,” he says, voice hoarse with sleep, “what’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” Garak says.

“It’s the middle of the night. Why are you calling?” Jake asks.

“Can you keep a secret?”

Jake sighs: his standard response to this question. “Yeah.”

“Can you act sufficiently surprised if someone tells you this same secret tomorrow?”

“I guess.”

“You guess or are you sure?” Garak asks.

“I’m sure.”

“Good.” Garak pauses, steeling himself for the full force of Jake’s joy. “He’s back.”

With the kind of year they’ve had together, Garak needn’t say another word. Jake already believes him.


End file.
